


Adventures in International Sexting

by Mosca



Category: Gymnastics RPF
Genre: Exhibitionism, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Sexting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-21 12:29:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/597774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mosca/pseuds/Mosca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danell and Epke love taking pictures of themselves almost as much as they love to look at each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adventures in International Sexting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [a_la_grecque](https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_la_grecque/gifts).



> Much love to Thistle for beta reading.
> 
> I hope there are enough orangutans for your liking, a_la_grecque!

Danell watches the video of of Epke's Olympic high bar routine over and over. Even before the Olympics, he'd watched versions of the routine so many times to study Epke's form that he'd memorized every grip and skill. Danell knows he'll never be able to match Epke's style, loose and explosive, long arms catching release after release. Danell is strong and precise, but Epke is weightless.

Still, Danell keeps watching. He tracks the flex and curve of a single shoulder muscle on one view, then notices only the tips of Epke's toes on the next. Having exhausted every other angle of Epke's body, Danell finally watches his face, calm in concentration until he lands. Epke sucks his lip as if not quite ready for a smile. He does it every time.

Epke hugged Danell after he realized he'd won the gold medal. It shouldn't have been anything special - Epke was hugging everyone in sight - but Epke gave Danell a little peck on the cheek, too. Neither of them said anything about the kiss later, but it's been stuck in Danell's head ever since, a huge unanswered question.

He's not thinking of Epke when he takes the picture. The sun is shining when he gets out of training, so he walks up from the gym to the forest preserve and takes a shirtless selfie. He tweets it for the fans with "Beautiful day in Miami" and doesn't think anything more of it.

That night, trying to fall asleep, he scrolls through his Twitter replies. The best way to feed his ego and ensure sweet dreams is to share his abs with the internet. He's proud of his cult following of teenage girls and nerdy gay guys. They say such nice things. So do a few people he knows: his manager congratulates him semi-sarcastically on his hard work. 

He almost scrolls past the really important reply. "Looks like it's HOT in Miami lol": not the most creative. But it's from Epke. Danell's heart flutters, a reaction he hadn't expected in himself. Before he can psych himself out, he replies back, "Is it HOT in Amsterdam too?"

He goes to sleep. His dreams are dirty all night long.

At five in the morning, as he's waking up, he gets a text from an international number. "I can't tweet this because my sport federation doesn't like it :)" and a photo of Epke in the locker room, smooth pecs and abs on full display, shorts tugged down as far as they can go without showing his cock. 

Danell brushes his teeth, throws clothes on, and races to the stationary bike to sweat away all thoughts of Epke's cock. When that doesn't work, he jumps into a cold shower. After that, he gives up, wraps a towel around his waist, and takes a picture of himself in the bathroom mirror, careful to keep his erection just out of frame. His phone gives him several warnings about additional charges for international SMS, which he ignores.

At the gym, Danell has to put his phone away until lunchtime. The first thing he does when his dad tells him it's time for a break is check his messages. His inbox contains a picture of Epke in a soaking wet white t-shirt, thin and tight enough to show the pink of his nipples and the ripple of his abs. It's a game now, and that turns Danell on as much as the picture itself.

They go on this way for the next few days with a few variations. Danell contorts to get a nice flexing shot of his back. Epke replies with a photo of his ass in skintight orange jeans. Finally, Danell runs out of ideas and decides it's time for a cock pic. He's surprised, as he aims his iPhone, to feel embarrassed and nervous. He's never been ashamed to show off his body, but this seems like an invitation to not just look but touch. Or an acknowledgment that he's been using Epke's photos as jerk off fuel for days, even though his cock isn't hard in the picture he sends, even though Epke has no way of reading all this subtext into one dirty picture.

Usually, Epke waits a few hours to send a pic back. Sometimes, it's the time difference: Danell's not good at figuring out what time it is in the Netherlands, so he assumes he's sent at least a few of these while Epke has been asleep. Other times, Danell assumes Epke's doing the same thing he's doing, which is spending way too much time trying to get the lighting and angle exactly right. 

This time, Epke's cock is on the screen of Danell's phone in under ten minutes. "Didn't want to keep you waiting :)" Epke adds.

They keep themselves entertained with cleverly staged cock and ass shots for a whole week. Some of them are daring feats of exhibitionism: Danell in the orange grove behind the Holiday Inn near the gym, Epke on the pommel horse at his training center after hours ("They shouldn't trust me with a key :)" he writes). Others are attempts to get themselves as close to coming as possible and show how hard they are. Epke sends one where he's lying on his back, cock flush with his stomach, a puddle of fresh come trailing up from it. The caption is, "I couldn't stop in time because I was thinking of you <3" 

Danell notices that Epke has progressed from smiley faces to hearts but tries not to read too much into that. Instead, he jerks off to the new photo and takes a picture so he can reply.

The text Danell gets the next morning doesn't have a picture attached, only a link. When he clicks it, a video opens up. It's Epke, naked, already half hard, clearly about to jerk off. Danell doesn't have time to watch a five-minute performance before his cardio session, let alone to take care of himself afterward. This turns out to be terrible planning, because all day, his mind is on Epke's cock and not on his routines. Practicing on floor, he turns his ankle badly on an easy tumbling pass, and the trainer sends him home to ice his injury.

He races through the door of his house to his bedroom, suddenly feeling no pain. He copies the link onto his computer so he can see the video better, an idea he came up with on the elliptical machine. Epke's abs and cock look even better on a big computer screen than on his phone. 

The first time Danell watches, he doesn't touch himself, just admires the perfect coordination of Epke's body, the beauty of his thickening cock. Danell watches with the intensity he applies to Epke's gymnastics routines, studying every angle as he replays. On the sixth time through, he's about as hard as Epke is at the start of the video, and he mirrors the motions of Epke's hands, keeping in perfect time with him. Despite his efforts, he comes before Epke does.

It's something to work on.

He can't try again right away, but he watches again nonetheless, concentrating this time on Epke's face. Epke begins with a confident smile, eyes crinkling and chin dimpling. His face slackens with pleasure as he goes, eyes closed, mane of red-gold hair fluttering in rhythm with his hand and his cock. Danell wishes he could cross the Atlantic in an instant and make Epke feel that way, himself.

Danell does the next best thing he can think of. He angles his computer's webcam toward his bed and positions himself in its field of vision. He takes off his shirt but remembers his sore ankle before taking off his shorts. He goes to the kitchen to refresh his ice pack and cool his nerves.

Before Danell does gymnastics, he doesn't like to talk to anyone, not even his dad. He hides under his towel to tune out the commotion around him and focus completely. But this is another kind of performance - the stakes not exactly lower, just differently placed. When he returns to his bed and the webcam, he starts out talking. "I messed up my ankle thinking about your video," he says, kicking up his leg so Epke can see the ice pack. "If this is your strategy, to lay me up for the season, then game on, man."

Danell takes off his shorts and gets to work on his cock. He quickly realizes why Epke closed his eyes: it's strange to stare back at the webcam. Danell lets his eyelids sink and pictures Epke's video, hoping to look that flawless. The sharp cold of the ice on his ankle slows Danell down, and he stays hard for a long time, in that blissful space of close but not too close, enjoying the privacy of his own hand while simultaneously pretending it's Epke touching him. When he goes over the edge, he feels loved and not alone, even though the house is empty.

He uploads his video to the same storage site Epke used, careful to mark it private, and puts a note on his monitor to remind him to delete it after a day or two. He's stupid enough to send homemade porn over the internet, but not stupid enough to leave it until some fan accidentally finds it. As he transcribes the video link into his text message, he feels his heart beating in his ears and has to breathe it back down to normal. After he sends it, he realized he hasn't watched it. He doesn't really want to, so he hopes it's okay.

An hour later, he gets a text. "Wow <3 very nice!!!"

Danell feels bad because he didn't say the same. Epke is treating him like a sort-of boyfriend, and he's still treating Epke like a rival. "Yours was great. I watched 6 times," he writes.

"Videos take a lot of time :) Back to pics for now ok? <3" 

"Whatever you want <3 <3" Danell writes. He hopes Epke realizes those hearts mean something.

For the next couple of weeks, Danell has a lot of happiness to channel into his gymnastics. They're texting more often now, sometimes without pics, just sweet little notes to say hello or make jokes about gym stuff. It feels like they're really dating.

One day, Danell gets home from training to find a box covered in foreign stamps and customs labels. He carries it up to his room and shuts the door in case it's something sexy. It turns out to be a soft toy monkey with long orange fur. There's a note inside, too: "Here's a friend for you to hug if you miss me." Epke has signed his name with a chain of hearts next to it, turned on their sides like it's a text. 

Danell reads the tag attached to the monkey's paw. It's actually an orangutan, modeled on a real one from the Amsterdam Zoo. With its gangly arms and bright orange fur, Danell can see why Epke picked it. He hugs it tight. Then, he takes his shirt off and takes a picture of himself hugging it to send to Epke.

He wants to send a gift back, but he isn't sure what to do. He can't think of a good animal to send, and browsing the internet for ideas only makes him more frustrated. At the gym, he puts it out of his mind and focuses on training. As he's running through his pommel routine, his hand slips, and he falls off the horse. He's not hurt, just mad at himself. He goes to the bench and drapes his towel over his head to collect himself. 

On his way home from the gym, Danell stops to buy a towel. The pattern can't be the same - he's sure his lucky towel has been permanently discontinued - but he finds a blue one with dolphins on it that's pretty close. He puts it in a box with a note that says, "Maybe if you sit on it, it will carry you to me like a magic carpet." It seems silly and excessively romantic, but that's how he feels.

A week later, Epke texts him a picture, wearing the towel over his head and shoulders. The message says, "I sat on it but it didn't go anywhere :("

Before Danell can reply, Epke texts another photo. In this one, he's holding up a filled-in registration form. Danell squints at the image and sees it's for the American Cup. "I'm making my own way instead <3 <3" Epke has written.

"You're going to do All-Around for me?" Danell writes back. 

"I want to do a lot of things for you :)" Epke replies.

Danell counts down days until March. He and Epke Skype sometimes, to hear each other's voices and look in each other's eyes. And to jerk off together, which is fun. 

They coordinate their flights so they'll get to Boston at the same time and take the shuttle to Worcester together. Mom and Dad, who have been amazingly cool about all of this, have offered to go to the hotel by themselves so Danell and Epke can have some time to themselves. Dad cautioned Danell to be careful, though: best not to do anything in public that will raise eyebrows. 

So when Epke walks through the exit doors from customs and immigration, Danell doesn't run up and hug him like he urgently wants to. They talk and laugh while they wait for the shuttle, but they don't touch. 

On the shuttle bus, Danell takes Epke's hand. And they begin.


End file.
